Picturesque
Opening Reception: July 19, 5-7 PM
Obscura Gallery presents the group exhibition, Picturesque Summer, radiating the vibrant palettes and warmth of summer through the photography of four female photographers. Each of the artists in the exhibition work in their own unique approaches to the photographic medium: Susan Burnstine captures the essence of her dream-world she recreates by making her own cameras; Rania Matar captures the beauty and strength of the women in Lebanon working on the reconstruction of their country; Aline Smithson’s inspiration comes from paintings by James McNeil Whistler, and her work pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium through innovations at the intersection of photographic processes; and Jennifer Spelman captures vibrant moments from colorful Cuba where she leads photographic exchanges in the country.
Rania Matar: She
“Rania Matar’s captivating photographs of young women around the world capture the transitory beauty of adolescence.”
—Katie White, Artnet
Photography by Rania Matar
Texts by Mark Alice Durant and Orin Zahra
As a Lebanese-born American artist and mother, Rania Matar’s cross-cultural experiences inform her art. She has dedicated her work to exploring issues of personal and collective identity through photographs of female adolescence and womanhood—both in the United States where she lives, and in the Middle East where she is from. Rania Matar: She focuses on young women in their late teens and early twenties, who are leaving the cocoon of home, entering adulthood and facing a new reality. Depicting women in the United States and the Middle East, this project highlights how female subjectivity develops in parallel forms across cultural lines. Each young woman becomes an active participant in the image-making process, presiding over the environment and making it her own. Matar portrays the raw beauty of her subjects—their age, individuality, physicality and mystery—and photographs them the way she, a woman and a mother, sees them: beautiful, alive.